What does it say that, in the end, one of the most enduring images of the campaign may be a comic's schtick about a vice presidential candidate?

Already, so much of what we've talked about, blogged about, analyzed and dissected is fading from memory.

Remember the mini-tempest over Obama's lipstick-on-a-pig comment, and whether it was a subterranean insult to Palin? Or Hillary Rodham Clinton's gripping account of her arrival in Bosnia under sniper fire, which never happened? Or
McCain's ad lumping Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton
as just another celebrity? Or the video of John Edwards carefully coifing his hair, set to the music of "I Feel Pretty?"

When his campaign was thrown off-stride by his former pastor's incendiary remarks about race, Obama faced the issue head-on and spoke to the frustrations of Americans of all races: "The anger is real. It is powerful, and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races," he told them.

For McCain, my friends, his most memorable moment may well have come far earlier, when he found redemption in the snows of New Hampshire after losing the Iowa caucuses. His candidacy had been written off as essentially dead not much earlier.

Eric Dezenhall, a public relations expert, nominates a different telling moment for McCain, from the town-hall-style debate in October.

"He was sort of wandering around in the back as Obama was speaking," Dezenhall said. "You have this old guy who just doesn't know what to do."

The victor's path to the presidency will be well chronicled in future history books.

The losers' treks, no matter how compelling, will get lesser treatment. Except, perhaps, for Obama's historic journey.

For all of the intensity of Clinton's quest to become the first woman president, from the dramatic high of her New Hampshire comeback to her excruciatingly long exit from the race, and all of the drama and silliness in between, says Thompson, "ask any 18-year-old freshman entering college five years from now about any of those things and I will be very surprised if any of them can tell you anything."